So HELLO again world. Sorry I’ve been MIA. I’ve been applying to graduate school programs and enjoying the holidays. My new year’s resolution was also to eat a completely vegan diet & it’s been way easier than I thought. Okay, I lied… I have not and probably never will stop eating honey. But eggs, cheese, milk, butter… all gone. Wish me luck.

I actually wrote this post prior to Christmas and never posted it!

Lately, I’ve been searching for vegan cookie recipes for Christmas. Christmas cookies have to vary, you can’t just have peanut butter, chocolate chip, and oatmeal raisin. You have to have fudge, meringues, chocolate chip (okay, yes), black walnut cookies, chocolate/peanutbutter/butterscotch chex mix (KILLER), eggnog flavored hoopla & peppermint bark shenanigans. Basically 1/2 random shit that you don’t have all the time… and some traditional things too. So trying to make them all vegan and still delicious is a chore. I did find some amazing looking recipes where the recipes were relatively simple, not requiring “flax eggs” or “Ener-G” egg replacer (of which I’m about to buy my first batch). Just plain old vegetable shortening instead of butter. If I have to make substitutes I like to make few. I hate recipes that call for a zillion substitutes at once… fake butter, fake eggs, some seaweed powder, some protein powder. Like… what? I’m just being snotty, I bet those recipes are delicious, but frankly I don’t have all those ingredients so I’m trying to stick with simple.

ANYWHO. Say hello to Lemon Drop cookies. I found some recipes for lemon drop cookies. And I found some recipes for Mexican/Italian Wedding cookies (seriously, they’re really freaking similar – who knew Mexicans & Italians shared wedding cookie recipes). I wanted a hyprid cookie. I made a list this morning of all the dry goods I’ve purchased this year (mostly from Echo Hill). I have a TON of dry goods. I’m ready for the apocalypse. Amongst the 2 column, page long, collegiate ruled notebook paper list I made were raw blanched almonds, powdered sugar, various flours, vanilla, vanilla beans, blah, blah, blah, blah, +50things.

I was determined to put almonds in my cookies. So this is the recipe. And they are pretty damn good. Next time, I would use that extra lemon juice…

Almond Lemon Drops

• 1/2 Cup Earth Balance (or margarine, or butter)
• 1/2 Cup Vegetable Shortening
• 3/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
• 1 Tsp Vanilla
• Juice of 1 Lemon
• Zest of 2 Lemons (you gotta figure out what do with the 2nd lemon now 🙂 you can definitely use it in the cookies, in fact they could even use it, but I’d increase the flour by a couple of tbsps)
• 1 Cup Almond Flour (a little more than a cup of raw almonds, food processor)
• 2 Cups AP Flour (I actually used 1 cup Whole Wheat, 1 cup AP)
• 1 Cup Powdered Sugar

Preheat Oven to 375 F degrees.

At room temperature, beat/whisk EB & shortening together until smooth and creaaaamy. Add sugar & beat some more. Add vanilla, lemon zest & lemon juice. Beat some more. Add almond flour and stir to combine. Add flour gradually until the batter is thick enough to shape into balls in your hand. Should not be very sticky.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Form dough into tablespoon/golf ball sized balls and place on parchment paper at least 1.5 inches apart.

Bake for about 12 minutes on a center rack. Keep an eye on them. They won’t really brown on the top, but they may be get dark on the bottom.

Let cool before coating in powdered sugar. SO yummy. SO easy.